Member Avatar for Gallienus

I have custom built cpu w/ a Sata boot Hard drive. Maxtor 320GB. I have a slave old IDE drive. The compture currently runs Linux booting from the SATA. I wish to also install Windows XP 64bit on a 141 GB FAT32 partition on this Hard drive.

Maxtor only provides a disk based MAXBLAST program which does nothing to aid installation. They provide no drivers.

When I insert the Windows XP boot CD it can only find the IDE drive, it absolutely does not see the SATA drive. There is an option during installation to load additional drivers from a 1952-era floppy drive. Ain't MicroSoft great? However I can never find a driver to load during this process: only an endless supply of expensive utility programs. Does anyone know where I can find a driver for the Maxtor "DiamondMax21" SATA harddrive?

No I don't want to erase Linux, format NTFS, nor install to the IDE.

Thanks for any help.

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  • Latest Post Latest Post by jbennet

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Short summary and a practical path forward for the setup described by (Linux on the SATA disk in AHCI, XP x64 installer not seeing the SATA drive, and Linux kernel panics if the BIOS mode is changed). and were on the right track — the OS needs a matching storage-controller driver for the motherboard/SATA controller — but here are concrete, low-risk steps to get Windows to see the SATA drive without breaking the existing Linux install.

First, identify the exact SATA controller so you download the correct Windows XP x64 driver. From your Linux system run:

lspci -nn | grep -i sata

That shows vendor:device IDs (for example 8086:xxxx for Intel). Use those IDs or the motherboard model to get the XP x64 AHCI/Intel/AMD/NVIDIA driver from the chipset or board vendor site. Practical lspci usage is documented in standard Linux docs. (bobbyiliev.github.io)

If Windows is already installed and you want it to see SATA while leaving BIOS in AHCI (so Linux keeps booting), install the appropriate AHCI driver inside Windows first, then reboot and keep BIOS at AHCI. Steps, in order:

  1. Download the vendor's XP x64 AHCI driver package (choose the legacy/XP x64 build).
  2. Extract the package to a folder (you need the .sys/.inf files).
  3. In Windows, open Device Manager, find the storage controller / unknown device (enable View → Show hidden devices if needed), right‑click → Update Driver → “Have Disk…” and point to the extracted .inf. If the installer is an EXE, try extracting it (unzip/7zip) to get the INF. After the driver installs, reboot into AHCI. Microsoft documents the F6/slipstream/F6-floppy options for setup-era drivers if you still want to reinstall XP from CD. ()

Notes and fallbacks: XP setup cannot format a FAT32 partition larger than 32 GB (XP can mount larger FAT32 partitions if you created them in Linux, but setup’s formatter will fail over 32 GB). If FAT32 is required, create it from Linux first; otherwise consider converting the partition to NTFS (Windows’ CONVERT utility). Also be aware XP x64 has stricter driver-signing behavior than 32-bit XP — use vendor-signed drivers for smooth installs. If drivers for XP x64 aren’t available, the safest long-term option is to keep Linux native on SATA and run Windows XP in a VM for legacy apps; XP itself is end-of-life and should be isolated from the Internet. (ftp.zx.net.nz)

If more detail is needed (exact lspci output, motherboard model), that will let you be pointed to the specific XP x64 driver package for your board.

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Member Avatar for Talonis

Did you try making a free partition on your SATA drive? Windows needs it's own partition.

Member Avatar for jbennet

Thats normal. Versions of Windows NT prior to Vista dont support the vast majority of SCSI or SATA controllers natively. Its not the HDD that needs a driver, its the controller (unless you are using a SATA RAID PCI Card or something, this will be built into the motherboard).

You need to go into the BIOS and set the SATA controller to IDE Emulation mode, then it will work.

A better way is integrate your motherboards chipset drivers into your XP CD using nlite. Then it can see the SATA drive. Beacuse its XP 64 bit (Server 2003 based) these drivers must be signed.

Member Avatar for Gallienus

Decided to just let Linux have that Sata drive since it sees everything. BTW the Sata had 2 Linux partitions + 1 FAT32 partition.

Installed Windows XP 64bit, SP2 on IDE slave drive. Even after all that it still can't see Sata drive.

If mount Sata other than ACHI the get kernel panic & Linux won't boot.

Member Avatar for jbennet

just install the chipset drivers on windows, then it should be able to see it.

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